New Kid at the Library with the Same Old Story

By Board Member Patty Jones
I am the middle child of five kids born into a family with 80 first cousins. To put that into a visual perspective, we always had nametags and color coordinated shirts at the family reunion. For an introvert, like myself, these familial gatherings presented a challenge. That is when the local library came to play a leading role in my childhood. My grandparents lived across the street from the Cresson Library, and I was free to visit the yellow-bricked building with its entrance ramp several times a day. Here I found a refuge from blue shirts and crooked nametags. And it was at the library that I found my conversation starters and storytelling notes for the family dinners.
To me, Libraries have always been public spaces filled with private places. I have sought them out in each of the places that I have lived. My husband and I have moved multiple times with our four children and a majority of the time we were within walking distance to the local library. What a treat it is to discover a gem like the Sewickley Public Library of the Quaker Valley School District right in the heart of the shops and schools. It is a distinctive and well-appointed public building with the doors open-wide to receive all manner of folks. A gracious lobby and the circulation desk at the front greet you with signs of what is hidden inside. Once you pass through the doors, you are free to find your own private place between the book stacks, at a table, among the magazines, or down a side aisle. Conversation salons and story telling are encouraged within the building or within the confines of your own home.
At the family reunion, I was at once connected to everyone and yet on my own voyage of discovery. Just as today, all are welcome to the Sewickley Public Library, yet each take their own journey through a computer link or an open book.
Enjoy and support it, Patty Jones